Umbrella Health

Umbrella Health
Information
Appearances	Saw VI
Purpose	Health Insurance Company
Members	William Easton† Aaron† Emily Gena† Dave† Shelby Josh† Debbie† Allen† Addy Hank†
Headquarters	Umbrella Health Headquarters
Status	Active

“	Everybody thinks we're the bad guys. Nobody mentions the millions of people we help every year without incident. Or the millions of dollars we donate to charity every year. Or all the free clinics we support.	”
	— William talks about Umbrella's work

Umbrella Health is a fictional group in the Saw franchise, appearing in Saw VI.

History

Membership and Claims

Umbrella Health was a health insurance company, eager to achive maximal profit even at the expense of its own clients. To decide who gets the requested coverage, William Easton, senior vice president of Umbrella's department for membership and claims, developed a complex formula. Because of this formula, several seriously ill people were denied their coverage despite paying their monthly premium to the company. In many of these cases, William explained his decisions to the angered clients with spurious reasons. To work as effective and efficient as possible, William was supported by Aaron, Emily, Gena, Dave, Shelby and Josh, six of his associates, who were responsible for checking each client's request for insurance for any errors that could justify the companie's refusal of bearing the treatment costs. (Saw VI)

Charitable Donations

John talks to William Easton

Despite these dubious business practices, William occasionally gave a good account of himself by supporting free clinics and donating money for beneficent work. One of these clinics was the Homeward Bound Clinic, a recovery clinic for drug addicts ran by Jill Tuck. While attending a party sponsored by him, he made acquaintance with John Kramer, Jill's husband, who thanked him for financially supporting the clinic. During their conversation, William and John talked about their work. Thereby, William explained the basic concept of his insurance formula to him. While he was visibly proud of it, John questioned the formula, stating that William decided about life and death of his clients. William tried to defend himself. John elaborated on his criticism and told William that he forget to take the survival instinct of his clients into consideration, which was the most important human element of all, according to him. However, despite their disagreements, John eventually became a client of Umbrella Health himself. (Saw VI)

Final Decision

John argues with William

Some time later, the renowned oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon diagnosed him with a brain tumor. Even though he told John that the tumor was inoperable, John looked for a possibility to save his life and thereby found out about an experimental therapy developed by a doctor in Norway. However, when he asked Umbrella Health for bearing the treatment costs, his coverage requests were repeatedly denied. Due to this, he went to William's office, hoping that the latter might have an understanding if he explained the situation to him in person. While William was initially open for the discussion, he didn't change his decision and quickly destroyed John's hope by stating that the coverage was unfeasable for Umbrella Health due to John's age and the bad development of his cancer. Furthermore, he told him that he would be dropped from coverage completely if he wanted to seek out the experimental treatment nonetheless. Angered by this, John asked him if he thougt that the living would have the ultimate judgement over him as the dead would have no claim over his soul, and indirectly threatened him by stating that he may be mistaken in that regard, before he threw the printout of his request in the garbage can and left William's office. (Saw VI)

The Abbott Process

Harold in William's office

Another one of his clients was Harold Abbott, a cardiac patient, whose request for coverage had been denied as well. Therefore, he made an appointment with William in his office. and asked him for the reason of the denial as he had been a client of the company for ten years. To his surprise, William told him that during the review of Harold's claim, one of his associates had found out about a previous condition which Harold didn't tell them about. This condition was in fact an oral surgery 30 years earlier, during which a cyst was removed from his jaw. William explained to him that any type of oral surgery would leave scar tissue, which could lead to gum disease, which in return could cause heart diseases. Angered by this, Harold yelled at him and reminded him that he had a family. William however interrupted him and merely told him that this situation was his own fault. Shocked by William's cold and arrogant attitude, he told him that he had just given him a death sentence before he left the office and told his family, who had been waiting outside, about William's decision. Upon hearing the bad news, Harold's wife and son, Tara and Brent, glared at William in shock and anger before leaving the building along with Harold.

Debbie in William's office

As Harold was financially unable to bear the treatment costs himself, his cardiac disease worsened and eventually resulted in his death, leaving his wife as a widow. Following his death, Tara and Brent tried to sue Umbrella Health. Because of this, Umbrella's lawyer, Debbie, made an appointment with William in his office in order to prepare him for the upcoming process. Therefore, William called his sister, Pamela, to cancel their appointment for dinner as the appointment with Debbie was on the same day as Pamela's birthday. Afterwards, William and Debbie discussed his testimony in the process. Despite William's confidence that everything would go the way they want it, Debbie convinced him of the necessity of this preparation and asked him about William's dispute with Harold. To her dismay, their conversation was frequently interrupted by William's secretary, Addy, his file clerk, Allen, and William himself when he watched a TV report by his sister about the late John Kramer, who had become known as the infamous Jigsaw Killer at this point. When Debbie finally asked him who had found the mistake in Harold Abbott's claim, which had resulted in the dismissal of his coverage request, William told her that it was one of his six insurance inspectors, who he sarcastically referred to as the "Dog Pit". Afterwards, the two of them ended their conversation and left the office. (Saw VI)

The Jigsaw Case

William is abducted by Hoffman

A few hours later, William returned and was the last one in his office as all of his subordinates had already finished work for the day. While he was alone in his office, he watched another news report about John Kramer on the TV. Since the revelation of John's identity as the Jigsaw Killer more than six months earlier, William had become increasingly nervous and was afraid of becoming a target of him as well because of their disputes in the past. His nervousness had become worse, when John's deadly torture games went on even after his death. While he watched the report, he was eventually surprised by a sudden blackout. When he was about to leave his office to see if his janitor, Hank, was still in the building, he was shocked when he saw a dark silhouette behind a milk glass window. Alerted by this, he grabbed a gun from the drawer of his desk and quickly went into hiding. When the person entered, William left his hiding spot and told the invader to freeze. However, the man turned around and was subsequently shot by William. Moments later, William realized that the man was in fact a security guard. While he tried to help him, the guard attempted to warn him of Hoffman who was approaching from behind. Unfortunately, William didn't understand the warning and was subdued by Detective Mark Hoffman, John Kramer's successor, who had disguised himself with a sinister pig mask. Afterwards, he took William to the abandoned Rowan Zoological Institute, where he had prepared a brutal and vicious game for him. During this game, William was confronted with his dubious business practices and had to face a series of tests, ultimately resulting in the death of him and several other members of his department. In the end, only Addy, Emily and Shelby survived the massacre and were later found by the Metropolitan Police Department. The events surrounding the massacre were later reported to the public by the news channels. (Saw VI, 3D)

In other Media

Saw: The Video Game

Umbrella was mentioned in Saw: The Video Game. After Dr. Daniel Whitehurst had to shut down the Whitehurst Insane Asylum due to financial reasons, he offered his workers to arrange job interviews with Umbrella to give them the chance of getting new jobs.

Saw II: Flesh & Blood

Umbrella Health was also mentioned by Detective David Tapp in various case files in the second video game Saw II: Flesh & Blood. According to these files, Umbrella was the insurance company of Mark Wilson, another victim of Jigsaw, as well as the Metropolitan Police Department.

Trivia

• It is possible that the companie's name its was inspired by the Resident Evil franchise, in which a pharmaceutical company is a front for the manufacture of viral and bio organic weapons.

Appearances and References

Films
Saw	Saw II	Saw III	Saw IV	Saw V	Saw VI	Saw 3D	Jigsaw	Spiral	Saw X
Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent	Appears	Mentioned	Absent	Absent	Absent